Making sure a standard is open
The easy way, courtesy of Rob Weir:
The posting, for those who can't face clicking through, discusses a Medieval method for defining units of measurement, in particular the rood (rod) and foot, by using a public statistical derivation of 16 men from the church service lining up left foot to left foot (the rood) and then dividing the result by 16 (the foot).
Presumably the Microsoft version of this standard method of determining would require using one of the larger Microsoft offices rather than a church. This would allow the resulting unit of measurement to be varied by their marketing and legal departments as necessary by controlling who comes out to form the line. Need a foot to be on the short side today? Send out all the most petite women you can find, preferably barefoot; need it to be on the long side? All the guys who shop at High and Mighty wearing steel toe-capped farmers boots. Need the measurement to look particularly open one day? Keep the marketing and legal teams out of sight...
Posted at 03:30PM Dec 18, 2007 by Chris Puttick in Technology |